Choice Of Proxy Research Articles

Principles in experimental design for evaluating genomic forecasts

Abstract Over the past decade, there has been a rapid increase in the development of predictive models at the intersection of molecular ecology, genomics, and global change. The common goal of these ‘genomic forecasting’ models is to integrate genomic data with environmental and ecological data in a model to make quantitative predictions about the vulnerability of populations to climate change. Despite rapid methodological development and the growing number of systems in which genomic forecasts are made, the forecasts themselves are rarely evaluated in a rigorous manner with ground‐truth experiments. This study reviews the evaluation experiments that have been done, introduces important terminology regarding the evaluation of genomic forecasting models, and discusses important elements in the design and reporting of ground‐truth experiments. To date, experimental evaluations of genomic forecasts have found high variation in the accuracy of forecasts, but it is difficult to compare studies on a common ground due to different approaches and experimental designs. Additionally, some evaluations may be biased toward higher performance because training data and testing data are not independent. In addition to independence between training data and testing data, important elements in the design of an evaluation experiment include the construction and parameterization of the forecasting model, the choice of fitness proxies to measure for test data, the construction of the evaluation model, the choice of evaluation metric(s), the degree of extrapolation to novel environments or genotypes, and the sensitivity, uncertainty and reproducbility of forecasts. Although genomic forecasting methods are becoming more accessible, evaluating their limitations in a particular study system requires careful planning and experimentation. Meticulously designed evaluation experiments can clarify the robustness of the forecasts for application in management. Clear reporting of basic elements of experimental design will improve the rigour of evaluations, and in turn our understanding of why models work in some cases and not others.

The Relationship Between Board Gender Diversity, Firm Life Cycle and Corporate Risk-taking

This study examines the impact of board gender diversity on corporate risk-taking, moderated by the firm life cycle stages. Data from 200 non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (2018–2022) were analyzed using the system generalized method of moments. Corporate risk-taking, the dependent, was measured using systematic risk and total-risk proxies. Results showed that board gender diversity had an insignificant effect, firm life cycle had a negative significant impact, while the interaction term (board gender diversity and firm life cycle) showed a positively significant impact on risk-taking measured by total risk. In contrast, both factors, along with their interaction, positively influenced risk-taking when assessed through systematic risk. The study further segmented the firm life cycle into five distinct stages, finding that the impact of board gender diversity on risk-taking varied across stages. For instance, at the introduction and maturity stages, board gender diversity positively affected risk-taking for both proxies. However, at the growth and decline stages, its impact was insignificant. These findings suggest variability in the relationship between board gender diversity and risk-taking, potentially influenced by the choice of risk proxies. Theoretically, this study contributes to the body of knowledge on how a firm’s life cycle and board gender diversity influence corporate risk-taking. This study’s insight also holds significant implications for corporate governance and policymaking because, contrary to popular belief, the findings suggest that board gender diversity does not uniformly reduce risk-taking; instead, its impact varies with the firm’s life cycle stage.

Air pollution emission inventory using national high-resolution spatial parameters for the Nordic countries and analysis of PM2.5 spatial distribution for road transport and machinery and off-road sectors

Abstract. Air pollution is an important cause of adverse health effects, even in the Nordic countries, which have relatively good air quality. Modelling-based air quality assessment of the health impacts relies on reliable model estimates of ambient air pollution concentrations, which furthermore rely on good-quality spatially resolved emission data. While quantitative emission estimates are the cornerstone of good emission data, description of the spatial distribution of the emissions is especially important for local air quality modelling at high resolution. In this paper we present a new air pollution emission inventory for the Nordic countries with high-resolution spatial allocation (1 km × 1 km) covering the years 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2012, and 2014. The inventory is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10571094 (Paunu et al., 2023). To study the impact of applying national data and methods to the spatial distribution of the emissions, we compared road transport and machinery and off-road sectors to CAMS-REGv4.2, which used a consistent spatial distribution method throughout Europe for each sector. Road transport is a sector with well-established proxies for spatial distribution, while for the machinery and off-road sector, the choice of proxies is not as straightforward as it includes a variety of different type of vehicles and machines operating in various environments. We found that CAMS-REGv4.2 was able to produce similar spatial patterns to our Nordic inventory for the selected sectors. However, the resolution of our Nordic inventory allows for more detailed impact assessment than CAMS-REGv4.2, which had a resolution of 0.1° × 0.05° (longitude–latitude, roughly 5.5 km × 3.5–6.5 km in the Nordic countries). The EMEP/EEA Guidebook chapter on spatial mapping of emissions has recommendations for the sectoral proxies. Based on our analysis we argue that the guidebook should have separate recommendations for proxies for several sub-categories of the machinery and off-road sectors, instead of including them within broader sectors. We suggest that land use data are the best starting point for proxies for many of the subsectors, and they can be combined with other suitable data to enhance the spatial distribution. For road transport, measured traffic flow data should be utilized where possible, to support modelled data in the proxies.

Proxies introduce bias in decoding TORC1 activity.

The eukaryotic TORC1 kinase integrates and links nutritional, energy, and hormonal signals to cell growth and homeostasis, and its deregulation is associated with human diseases including neurodegeneration, cancer, and metabolic syndrome. Quantification of TORC1 activities in various genetic settings and defined physiological conditions generally relies on the assessment of the phosphorylation level of residues in TORC1 targets. Here we show that two commonly used TORC1 effectors in yeast, namely Sch9 and Rps6, exhibit distinct phosphorylation patterns in response to rapamycin treatment or changes in nitrogen availability, indicating that the choice of TORC1 proxies introduces a bias in decoding TORC1 activity.

The empirics of technology, employment and occupations: Lessons learned and challenges ahead

AbstractThis paper is a critical review of the empirical literature resulting from recent years of debate and analysis regarding technology and employment and the future of work as threatened by technology, outlining both lessons learned and challenges ahead. We distinguish three waves of studies and relate their heterogeneous findings to the choice of technological proxies, the level of aggregation, the adopted research methodology and to the relative focus on robots, automation and AI. The challenges ahead include the need for awareness of possible ex‐ante biases associated with the adopted proxies for innovation; the recognition of the trade‐off between microeconometric precision and a more holistic macroeconomic approach; the need for granular analysis of the reallocation and transformation of occupations and tasks brought about by different types of new technologies; the call for a closer focus on impacts on labor quality, in terms of types of jobs and working conditions.

The individual private cost of problematic alcohol use: a compensating income variation approach

ABSTRACT While the social cost of problematic alcohol use has been examined, limited information exists on the private cost incurred by consumers. Using Icelandic panel data and the compensating income variation (CIV) method we estimate this individual private cost. We examine results using different measures of problematic alcohol use, two non-linear functional forms for income, and two utility proxies. We estimate the yearly individual cost, or CIV, to be 4–62 thousand USD. These estimates are considerably higher if not adjusted for income endogeneity. Results suggest that the CIV method is highly sensitive to model specifications in two areas: (i) The modelling of income; log-transformation contrasted with a piecewise-linear form shows that high-income groups affect full sample CIVs substantially, highlighting differences between mean and median value-estimates. This raises ethical questions on the trade-off between utilitarian policies based on means and largely driven by high-income groups, versus policies guided by median values that benefit most individuals. (ii) The choice of utility proxy; the CIV using happiness is substantially higher than that obtained using life satisfaction. This highlights the need for policy makers to consider whether their objectives should focus on cognitive measures of subjective well-being or affective measures.

Financial sector development and natural resource rents: the role of institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Institutions are important in analyzing the relationship between natural resource rents and financial sector development. The existing research has not unanimously established the role played by the quality of institutions on the impact of natural resource rents on financial sector development. The financial-resource nexus literature has largely ignored the role of institutions and the sensitivity of the relationship to the choice of proxies for financial sector development. This study provides new empirical evidence on the interactive role of institutions in the relationship between natural resource rents and financial sector development for 25 Sub-Saharan African countries from 1996 to 2017. To that end, we employ a dynamic system GMM estimator with endogeneity-purging efficiency. Our results show that a huge improvement in legal and political institutions is required to boost the impact of natural resource rents on Sub-Saharan Africa's financial sector development. Our results are robust to the use of alternative measures of institutions. We also found that the impact of natural resource rents on financial sector development is unclear as this depends on how financial sector development is measured. Implications of the findings for academics, policymakers and regulators are provided.

The impact of sampling strategy on the cloud droplet number concentration estimated from satellite data

Abstract. Cloud droplet number concentration (Nd) is of central importance to observation-based estimates of aerosol indirect effects, being used to quantify both the cloud sensitivity to aerosol and the base state of the cloud. However, the derivation of Nd from satellite data depends on a number of assumptions about the cloud and the accuracy of the retrievals of the cloud properties from which it is derived, making it prone to systematic biases. A number of sampling strategies have been proposed to address these biases by selecting the most accurate Nd retrievals in the satellite data. This work compares the impact of these strategies on the accuracy of the satellite retrieved Nd, using a selection of in situ measurements. In stratocumulus regions, the MODIS Nd retrieval is able to achieve a high precision (r2 of 0.5–0.8). This is lower in other cloud regimes but can be increased by appropriate sampling choices. Although the Nd sampling can have significant effects on the Nd climatology, it produces only a 20 % variation in the implied radiative forcing from aerosol–cloud interactions, with the choice of aerosol proxy driving the overall uncertainty. The results are summarised into recommendations for using MODIS Nd products and appropriate sampling.

Financial institutions depth and growth in Nepal: Sensitivity to the choice of depth proxy

Financial institutions depth and growth in Nepal: Sensitivity to the choice of depth proxy

First measurement of the characteristic depletion radius of dark matter haloes from weak lensing

ABSTRACT We use weak lensing observations to make the first measurement of the characteristic depletion radius, one of the three radii that characterize the region where matter is being depleted by growing haloes. The lenses are taken from the halo catalogue produced by the extended halo-based group/cluster finder applied to DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys DR9, while the sources are extracted from the DECaLS DR8 imaging data with the fourier_quad pipeline. We study halo masses $12 \lt \log (M_{\rm grp} \,[{\rm M_{\odot }}\, h^{-1}]) \le 15.3$ within redshifts 0.2 ≤ z ≤ 0.3. The virial and splashback radii are also measured and used to test the original findings on the depletion region. When binning haloes by mass, we find consistency between most of our measurements and predictions from the cosmicgrowth simulation, with exceptions to the lowest mass bins. The characteristic depletion radius is found to be roughly 2.5 times the virial radius and 1.7–3 times the splashback radius, in line with an approximately universal outer density profile, and the average enclosed density within the characteristic depletion radius is found to be roughly 29 times the mean matter density of the Universe in our sample. When binning haloes by both mass and a proxy for halo concentration, we do not detect a significant variation of the depletion radius with concentration, on which the simulation prediction is also sensitive to the choice of concentration proxy. We also confirm that the measured splashback radius varies with concentration differently from simulation predictions.

The proper choice of proxies for relevant strontium isotope baselines used for provenance and mobility studies in glaciated terranes – Important messages from Denmark

Strontium (Sr) isotope based provenance and mobility studies of ancient humans and animals necessitate representative isoscapes/baselines. However, regions/terranes that were shaped and affected by glaciers during the last Ice Ages and are covered by glaciogenic sediments present a challenge with regards to the choice of suitable surface proxy archives. Recent studies proposed that only 87Sr/86Sr signatures from pristine areas are relevant for this purpose.To test this theory, 160 new Sr concentrations [Sr] and 87Sr/86Sr signatures composed from ~960 subsamples of soil leachates and plants, complemented with 55 surface waters from agriculturally unaffected pristine forest sites from all over Denmark (island of Bornholm excluded) were analyzed. The results reveal that average 87Sr/86Sr signatures of all three proxies (plants: 0.7115 ± 0.0025; 2σ, n = 162; soil leachates: 0.7118 ± 0.0037; 2σ; n = 161, surface waters: 0.7104 ± 0.0030; 2σ, n = 55) are elevated compared to larger water bodies (creeks, rivers, lakes). In mixing diagrams, the data converge in a shared high [Sr] low 87Sr/86Sr endmember, which points to either remnant natural carbonates and/or organic components retaining carbonate Sr in the studied Podzols/Luvisols. The indications for more abundant carbonates in the past, compared to today's acid leached soils, implies that 87Sr/86Sr values measured from pristine forest locations and heathlands do not adequately reflect the biosphere compositions that prevailed ~12,000–2000 thousand years ago. Consequently, pristine forests in Denmark seem to be unsuitable proxy archive environments for constructing Sr isotope baselines for determining the provenance and mobility of ancient humans and animals. Hence, 87Sr/86Sr values measured in these pristine areas are non-representative and inadequate, and their use will lead to wrong interpretations.Finally, our study sheds light on the complexity of defining relevant and representative isoscapes/baselines in significantly changing environments and areas where the surface biosphere conditions do not necessary reflect the underlying geology.

A component Markov regime‐switching autoregressive conditional range model

AbstractIn this article, we develop one‐ and two‐component Markov regime‐switching conditional volatility models based on the intraday range and evaluate their performance in forecasting the daily volatility of the S&P 500 Index. We compare the performance of the models with that of several well‐established return‐ and range‐based volatility models, namely EWMA, GARCH, and FIGARCH models, the Markov regime‐switching GARCH model, the hybrid EWMA model, and the CARR model. We evaluate the in‐sample goodness of fit and out‐of‐sample forecast performance of the models using a comprehensive set of statistical and economic loss functions. To assess the statistical performance of the models, we use mean error metrics, directional predictive ability tests, forecast evaluation regressions, and pairwise and joint tests; and to appraise the economic performance of the models, we use value at risk coverage tests and risk management loss functions. We show that the proposed range‐based Markov switching conditional volatility models produce more accurate out‐of‐sample forecasts, contain more information about true volatility, and exhibit similar or better performance when used for the estimation of value at risk. Our results are robust to the choice of volatility proxy, estimation sample size, out‐of‐sample evaluation period, and alternative error distributions.

Impacts of Capital Structure and Dividend Policy on the Financial Performance of Listed Companies on Vietnamese Stocks Market

This study is taken to describe the relationship between the levels of debt, dividend policy and the performance of firms listed in Vietnamese stock market. The dividend policy is proxied by the dividend yield while firm’s performance is measured by ROE, ROA, and P/E. The total number of observations is 552, collecting from 92 listed companies on Hochiminh Stock Exchange during 2012 and 2019. The analysis results from generalized least squares (GLS) models report that the choice of firm’s performance proxy affects the relationship between firm’s performance and leverage as well as dividend policy. While leverage has positive impact on ROE and ROA, it has negative impact on P/E. In contrast, dividend yield ratio is negatively correlated with ROA and P/E but positively correlated with ROE. However, the impact of debt levels on firm’s performance is independent with the choice of leverage proxy. The findings of this research are expected to provide better understanding about the connection between debt, dividend and performance of the firm that can support the managers to make relevant decisions.

Regional multi-sources of Carboniferous karstic bauxite deposits in North China Craton: Insights from multi-proxy provenance systems

The sources of karstic bauxite are complex and have not been so far addressed by multi-proxy provenance studies that interrogate bauxite sources. The Carboniferous bauxite in the North China Craton, which is the largest karstic bauxite area in the world, contains considerable quantities of detrital heavy minerals, including zircon, rutile, tourmaline, and moissanite, allowing multi-proxy provenance studies. In this study, geological, mineralogical, geochemical analyses, and detrital heavy mineral analyses were conducted for the Jiagou and Kuancaoping bauxite deposits located in the southern and northern parts of the North China Craton, respectively. Coupled with previously published geological, geochemical, and detrital mineral data, this study aims to thoroughly clarify the provenance of karstic bauxites in the North China Craton. In general, the ore-bearing rock series contains three units: lower iron-bearing claystone consisting of illite, chamosite, and goethite; middle bauxite ore dominated by diaspore, kaolinite, illite, chamosite, and anatase; and upper bauxitic claystone composed of kaolinite, diaspore, and anatase. Immobile trace element ratios and Rare Earth Element patterns of the bauxites throughout the North China Craton revealed that the lower iron-bearing claystone was autochthonous and directly sourced from the underlying limestone. The isotope data of detrital zircon along with chemical compositions and morphological features of detrital rutile, tourmaline, and moissanite in the bauxite ores revealed that the bauxite ore and bauxitic claystone were mainly para-allochthonous and derived from regional multi-sources. The multi-sources origin is also shared by other karst bauxites in the world. The results indicate that the bauxite deposits in the northern and southern parts of the North China Craton have distinct source materials. The provenance of the bauxite in the northern part of the North China Craton is mainly from the northern margin craton orogenic belt and the adjacent intraplate paleo-uplifts, whereas in the southern part, it is dominated by the North Qinling orogenic belt and the nearby paleo-uplifts. Consequently, the Carboniferous karstic bauxites in the North China Craton are characterized by the autochthonous origin of the lower iron-bearing claystone and the para-allochthonous origin of the upper bauxite ore and bauxitic claystone. This clearly illustrates the dependence of provenance information on mineral proxy choice and underlines the preponderance of multiproxy provenance studies to solve the complex source issue of karst bauxites in North China Craton.

Temperature and mass scaling affect cutaneous and pulmonary respiratory performance in a diving frog.

Global climate change is altering patterns of temperature variation, with unpredictable consequences for species and ecosystems. The Metabolic Theory of Ecology (MTE) provides a powerful framework for predicting climate change impacts on ectotherm metabolic performance. MTE postulates that physiological and ecological processes are limited by organism metabolic rates, which scale predictably with body mass and temperature. The purpose of this study was to determine if different metabolic proxies generate different empirical estimates of key MTE model parameters for the aquatic frog Xenopus laevis when allowed to exhibit normal diving behavior. We used a novel methodological approach in combining a flow-through respirometry setup with the open-source Arduino platform to measure mass and temperature effects on 4 different proxies for whole-body metabolism (total O2 consumption, cutaneous O2 consumption, pulmonary O2 consumption, and ventilation frequency), following thermal acclimation to one of 3 temperatures (8°C, 17°C, or 26°C). Different metabolic proxies generated different mass-scaling exponents (b) and activation energy (EA ) estimates, highlighting the importance of metabolic proxy selection when parameterizing MTE-derived models. Animals acclimated to 17°C had higher O2 consumption across all temperatures, but thermal acclimation did not influence estimates of key MTE parameters EA and b. Cutaneous respiration generated lower MTE parameters than pulmonary respiration, consistent with temperature and mass constraints on dissolved oxygen availability, SA:V ratios, and diffusion distances across skin. Our results show that the choice of metabolic proxy can have a big impact on empirical estimates for key MTE model parameters.

Information and sin goods: Experimental evidence on cigarettes.

We test the importance of information source on consumer choice in the context of sin goods, specifically electronic and tobacco cigarettes, among adult smokers. We proxy choice with intentions to vape and quit smoking in the next 30 days. We experimentally vary the information source: government, private companies, physicians, and no source. Our findings suggest that information source matters in the context of cigarettes choice for adult smokers. Private companies appear to be an important information source for cigarettes among adult smokers.

The bright side of geopolitical risk: evidence from Chinese firms

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate whether firms invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a risk protection mechanism as the response to increased geopolitical risk (GPR).Design/methodology/approachThe sample of this study includes non-financial listed firms on the Chinese stock market over 2000–2016. Several measures of CSR and GPR were used to examine the relationship between two factors. Further investigation is conducted to find out how increasing uncertainty in the business environment in both geopolitics and macroeconomic policy affects corporate decision-making regarding CSR.FindingsGPR has a significant and positive effect on CSR, meaning that Chinese firms use CSR investment as an insurance mechanism against uncertainty arising from heightened geopolitical uncertainty. Further analysis indicates a negative joint effect of GPR and uncertainty in macroeconomic policy on CSR and shows that it can exhaust firms’ resources and offset their individual positive impacts on CSR at the extreme level of uncertainty. The findings are robust to the choices of proxies, model specifications and endogeneity concerns.Originality/valueThis study sheds light on the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on the positive relationship between GPR and CSR. The findings of this study support the risk management view, in which firms engage more in CSR as a form of insurance mechanism to react to geopolitical uncertainty. This is also the first empirical study investigating the joint effect of GPR and economic policy uncertainty on CSR.

Challenges and boundaries in implementing social return on investment: An inquiry into its situational appropriateness

AbstractNonprofit organizations (NPOs) and social enterprises are increasingly under pressure to justify their use of resources and report their impact on society. Frameworks that monetize social value such as social return on investment (SROI) have emerged as a response. The existing literature highlights many benefits and technical challenges of SROI, but largely ignores strategic and organizational learning aspects. This paper explores the use of SROI in an NPO conducting cultural heritage preservation. By analyzing the challenges managers face in agreeing on a reliable (“correct”) computation of SROI and in assessing the validity and relevance (“appropriateness”) of SROI, we seek to understand the challenges and boundaries of SROI. Challenges with a reliable computation of SROI are identifying stakeholders, the choice of proxies, the time horizons, and deadweight factors. Challenges with an appropriate SROI calculation are comparability, subjectivity, legitimacy, and resource utility. We argue that SROI calculations might not be reliable or appropriate in organizations with fuzzy purposes, broad value creation goals, broad target groups, very individual or subjective proxies, strongly lagged outcomes, complex or unobservable causality, and with lack of legitimacy among stakeholders. Organizations should not trustingly adopt SROI without being aware of these limitations.

Brief communication: The role of using precipitation or river discharge data when assessing global coastal compound flooding

Abstract. Interacting storm surges and high water runoff can cause compound flooding (CF) in low-lying coasts and river estuaries. The large-scale CF hazard has been typically studied using proxies such as the concurrence of storm surge extremes either with precipitation or with river discharge extremes. Here the impact of the choice of such proxies is addressed employing state-of-the-art global datasets. Although they are proxies of diverse physical mechanisms, we find that the two approaches show similar CF spatial patterns. On average, deviations are smaller in regions where assessing the actual CF is more relevant, i.e. where the CF potential is high. Differences between the two assessments increase with the catchment size, and our findings indicate that CF in long rivers (catchment ≳5–10×103 km2) should be analysed using river discharge data. The precipitation-based assessment allows for considering local-rainfall-driven CF and CF in small rivers not resolved by large-scale datasets.

WITHDRAWN: Environmental dimensionality determines species coexistence

According to the competitive-exclusion principle, the number n of regulating variables describing a given community dynamics is an upper bound on the number of species (or types or morphs) that can coexist at equilibrium. On occasion, it is possible to reformulate a model with a lower number of regulating variables than appeared in the initial specification. We call the smallest number of such variables the dimension of the environmental feedback, or environmental dimension for short. For studying which species can invade a community, it is enough to know the sign of each species' long-term growth rate, i.e., invasion fitness. Therefore, different indicators of population growth - so-called fitness proxies, such as the basic reproduction number-are sometimes preferred. However, as we show, different fitness proxies may have different dimensions. Fundamental characteristics such as the environmental dimension should not depend on such arbitrary choices. Here, we resolve this difficulty by introducing a refined definition of environmental dimension that focuses on neutral fitness contours. On this basis, we show that this definition of environmental dimension is not only unambiguous, i.e., independent of the choice of fitness proxy, but also constructive, i.e., applicable without needing to assess an infinite number of possible fitness proxies. We then investigate how to determine environmental dimensions by analysing the two components of the environmental feedback: the impact map describing how a community's resident species affect the regulating variables and the sensitivity map describing how population growth depends on the regulating variables. The dimension of the impact map is lower than n when the set of feasible environments is of lower dimension than n, and the dimension of the sensitivity map is lower than n when not all n regulating variables affect the sign of population growth independently. While the minimum of the dimensions of the impact and sensitivity maps provides an upper bound on the environmental dimension, the combined effect of the two maps can result in an even lower environmental dimension, which happens when the sensitivity map is insensitive to some aspects of the impact map's image. To facilitate the applications of the framework introduced here, we illustrate all key concepts with detailed worked examples. In view of these results, we claim that the environmental dimension is the ultimate generalization of the traditional and widely used notions of the "number of regulating variables" or the "number of limiting factors", and is thus the sharpest generally applicable upper bound on the number of species that can robustly coexist in a community.